"Now, is not this a glorious sight? Ah! what a fine sight!" said he, stopping his horse; and the sight was certainly a striking one. There lay the Zaporoghian, like a lion, full length on the road; his crown tuft, proudly thrown back, was fully a foot in length; his trousers were smeared with tar, in order to show his utter contempt for the costly scarlet cloth of which they were made. After remaining for a while looking at him, Boolba continued to thread his way through a narrow street, crowded by workmen, who, in the street itself, were working at their trade, and by people of every nation, who filled this suburb of the Ssiecha, which wore the appearance of a fair, and whence the Ssiecha derived its food and clothes; for the Ssiecha itself knew nothing beyond carousing and fighting. At last, they left the suburb and saw some _koorens_[13] scattered about and covered with grass, or according to the Tartar fashion with cow-hair felt. About some of the koorens stood cannons. Nowhere could be seen any palisade, or any of the low cottages with sheds on short wooden columns, like those of the suburb. A small mound with a ditch, guarded by no living soul, was only a proof of the greatest carelessness. Some strongly-built Zaporoghians, who were lying on the very road, with their pipes between their teeth, coolly surveyed the riders, but did not even move. Tarass rode cautiously through the midst of them with his sons, and said, "Health be with you, gentlemen!" "And with you, too;" answered the Zaporoghians. In every direction the field was covered with motley groups of people. Their brown faces bespoke them at once to be hardened in war and inured to every privation. So here is the _Ssiecha_! Here is that nest, whence take their flight all those men, as proud and strong as lions! Hence pour freedom and Cossackdom over all Ukraine!